time for canada to make a graceful exit from the seal hunt

Day 9 - The HSI Protect the Seals team is still monitoring the cruelty out on the Ice. The tally for seals killed is now at 12,268.

However, in news from Canada, Rebecca Aldworth reports that a top seal processor is not buying seal fur this year. She writes, "But even as despair washes over me like the blood on the ice below, I have reason to feel hope. The top seal processor in Canada isn’t buying seal fur this year because so many compassionate nations have taken a stand and closed their borders to this cruelty. Just today, the Canadian Sealers Association announced it would scale back it’s operations in light of the poor seal fur markets. The sealing industry is at a crossroads and I can feel a change coming. Over the years, a number of people have told me that the commercial seal hunt can never be ended. I never believed them and I never stopped campaigning. And this year is proving them all wrong."

20th April, 2015

As of this morning 9592 seals have been hunted and killed on the Canadian Ice. HSI has been present on the ice now for 8 days, exposing the cruelty that is Canadian's annual seal hunt.

Media Release:

SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY JOINS THE FRAY AS HSI REPORTS LIVE FROM THE ICE AND THE CANADIAN SEAL HUNT CONTINUES

Read more from HSI/Canada exective director Rebecca Aldworth, who has documented the hunt for 17 years:

"Each year I bear witness to the commercial seal hunt I am reminded of how critical it is we are here. The boats are very far offshore and the public won’t see the horrific treatment of these defenseless pups if HSI’s cameras stop rolling.

We are filming in an area today where sealers are killing baby seals. There are no Canadian government enforcement authorities in sight.

It is impossible to keep from crying as we film these trusting and friendly pups dying, one by one, at the hands of these so-called hunters. We are prevented by law from intervening in any way and our cameras are the only way we have to stop this cruelty. So we document what happens.

Below us baby seals are being shot, clubbed, impaled on hooks and skinned in quick succession. We watch in horror as one baby seal clearly raises her head from the massive pool of blood she is lying in. A sweet seal pup looks up, sensing the danger of the approaching sealing boat. He is shot and thrashes on the ice only to slip into the blood-slicked water. Still more seal pups are impaled on hooks and dragged onto vessels and then clubbed on deck.

The CEO of the company commissioning this slaughter, PhocaLux International, has stated that all parts of the seal will be used. Yet after each kill, the seal carcasses are tossed over the side of the boat into the ocean.

It is appalling that PhocaLux is being financed by the government of the province I once called home, even as the largest seal processor in Canada, Carino Processing Ltd, admits to warehousing a stockpile of seal fur.

Every year we film this slaughter we see the same kind of misery and much of it is perfectly legal in this country. As we head back to land, I can only wonder how much suffering we have to expose before my government will be shamed into acting."

April 14th, 2015

Canada's annual seal hunting season has begun, and Sir Paul McCartney is urging officials to make this the last year of the cruel cull.

McCartney joined Humane Society International on the ice in 2006, and since then he has been supporting our efforts to stop the seal carnage.

He writes, "Canada’s brutal commercial seal hunt has begun, and once again thousands of baby seals will be shot and bludgeoned to make fur products that nobody wants or needs.

The European Union’s trade ban on commercial seal hunt products has already helped save more than one million baby seals from a horrible fate, but we need to ensure the EU keeps this strong ban intact. That’s why my friends at Humane Society International are once again setting out for the ice flows for the grim task of catching this horror on film.

“Their videos of the bloody seal slaughter provide the only vital evidence to demonstrate year after year that these seals are dying a horrible death for their fur. As HSI bears witness to this cruelty, I wish them well and hope that this will be the last year that Canada’s ice turns red.”

HSI has arrived once again on the Canadian ice flows, and we will keep you updated on our efforts to stop the seal slaughter.

Live from the Ice - April 12th, 2015

Blog excerpt from HSI/Canada executive director Rebecca Aldworth:

"For most people, the onset of spring symbolizes rebirth and renewal as trees begin to bud and the first green shoots appear in the ground. But for me, and all of my colleagues on the Protect Seals team, the melting snow and longer days signal something far darker: the approaching commercial seal hunt.

Today, half an hour before dawn, the commercial seal slaughter opened off Newfoundland. For the seventeenth year in a row, I am here to bear witness to the suffering of the baby seals.

It is the hardest thing I do. Prevented by law from intervening, we watch as sealing boats bear down on the unsuspecting pups. Our cameras are these animals’ best defence and so we film as the sealers club and shoot them. We know our evidence will ultimately be the undoing of this brutal industry.

I take our role seriously. The commercial seal hunt happens far offshore, out of public view. If we didn’t film and expose what happens here, people would never know why this slaughter needs to end. The evidence that we bring back is slowly changing history by convincing nations to ban their trade in seal products.

As markets have closed and prices for seal fur have plummeted, most sealers have chosen not to kill seals in recent years. More than 1.8 million baby seals have been spared a horrible fate as a result.

Yet the hunt goes on. Multimillion dollar government financing for the sealing industry was announced just days ago, and it will allow the seal processors to buy baby seal fur despite the dwindling markets.

HSI is the only group bearing witness to the suffering of these seals. As we wait for reports from our spotter plane, we are solemn, knowing the responsibility we have to document this slaughter."